Rutgers Tries to Calm Furor as More Officials Quit

Rutgers Athletic Director Tim Pernetti at a news conference in November to announce that the university would join the Big Ten Conference.Credit
Elsa/Getty Images

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — As Rutgers officials tried Friday to calm the public furor over their handling of abusive behavior by the Scarlet Knights’ men’s basketball coach, the university president and athletic director presented conflicting depictions of who was responsible for the decision to keep the coach on staff after administrators first learned of his behavior.

They also revealed that the circle of people who viewed video of abusive treatment of players by the coach, Mike Rice, as early as December was wider than previously understood, and that it included members of the university’s board of governors. That group was informed of the decision to suspend Mr. Rice for three games and send him to anger-management counseling, but not to fire him, according to Ralph Izzo, chairman of the Rutgers board.

On Friday morning, two days after Mr. Rice was fired, Athletic Director Tim Pernetti resigned, and implied that he was being made a scapegoat. He said his initial inclination when he saw the videos last fall was to fire Mr. Rice, but “Rutgers decided to follow a process involving university lawyers, human resources professionals, and outside counsel.”

Robert L. Barchi, the president of Rutgers, placed the blame on Mr. Pernetti and other senior officials who he said recommended that Mr. Rice be suspended rather than fired.

At least one significant donor, David H. Bugen, who runs an investment firm in Chatham N.J., said he was halting plans for a new gift to the university, which he said would have been his largest ever, because he was upset at the way Mr. Pernetti had been treated.

“I am not proud,” Mr. Bugen said. “It is unfortunate how a person can be made a scapegoat.”

On Friday, the university also released a 50-page report that John P. Lacey, an outside lawyer, prepared last year in response to the abuse allegations. It made clear that Rutgers officials were aware that Mr. Rice’s outbursts “were not isolated” and that he had a fierce temper, used homophobic and misogynistic slurs, kicked his players and threw basketballs at them.

But it described Mr. Rice as “passionate, energetic and demanding” and concluded that his behavior constituted “permissible training.” It found that he aimed to “cause them to play better during the team’s basketball games.”

His methods, “while sometimes unorthodox, politically incorrect, or very aggressive, were within the bounds of proper conduct and training methods,” the report said.

At a news conference Friday afternoon, Dr. Barchi announced the resignations of Mr. Pernetti and John B. Wolf, the university’s general counsel. Dr. Barchi placed the blame for the decision to suspend rather than fire Mr. Rice in December squarely on Mr. Pernetti and the university’s lawyers, saying he had not watched the video of Mr. Rice’s actions last fall and instead had relied on their descriptions of it.

“I know had I seen the tape that my assessment would have differed from theirs, and I would have acted on my assessment,” Dr. Barchi said.

When asked why he had not watched the video, he said: “I can’t answer exactly why I didn’t. You can only say in retrospect I sure wish I had.”

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“I have admitted my role in, and regret for, that decision, and wish that I had the opportunity to go back and override it for the sake of everyone involved,” he added.

Dr. Barchi disputed that. “I don’t recall any statement to me that his first instinct was to fire him,” he said.

He said he had been speaking regularly with Gov. Chris Christie, who pushed a plan through the New Jersey Legislature to reorganize Rutgers and higher education in the state. Mr. Christie applauded Mr. Pernetti’s decision to resign, saying, “This entire incident was regrettable, and while it has damaged the reputation of our state university, we need to move forward now on a number of fronts.”

Mr. Pernetti said he first saw the videos in November, which was the same month he secured a coveted invitation for Rutgers to join the Big Ten Conference, a move that guaranteed national exposure and significant television revenue.

Dr. Barchi said the Big Ten invitation had no bearing on the decision not to fire Mr. Rice.

“My recollection was that this was all after the Big Ten,” he said. “I don’t remember hearing about any of this before the Big Ten.”

The period was a sensitive one for the university. Rutgers was invited to the Big Ten on Nov. 20. Eric Murdock, a former assistant coach under Mr. Rice, provided video of the abuse to university officials on Nov. 26.

Dr. Barchi dismissed any suggestion of a coordinated effort to hide Mr. Rice’s behavior. “I can honestly say that whoever looks into this, and however it is looked into, they’re not going to find any evidence of a cover-up,” he said.

Jim Delany, the commissioner of the Big Ten, said he knew nothing about the video until this week, but added, “This will have no impact on Rutgers transitioning its membership to the conference.”

While more than a dozen faculty members have signed a petition calling for Dr. Barchi to resign, Mr. Izzo, the chairman of the Rutgers board, expressed his confidence in Dr. Barchi’s leadership on Friday.

“I think he’s the right person to run this place for many years to come,” he said.

Mr. Izzo also said that an athletics committee made up of board members and trustees reviewed video of Mr. Rice’s actions at a Dec. 14 meeting. While they were disturbed by his behavior, they were satisfied that the suspension was adequate, he said.

That committee did not report anything about “that particular item of the agenda” to the wider board at its next meeting, Mr. Izzo said.

Messages left for several board members on Friday were not returned.

Also on Friday, Mr. Murdock, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against Rutgers and several officials there.

A version of this article appears in print on April 6, 2013, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Athletic Director Quits at Rutgers As Fallout Grows. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe